Cogito, Ergo Sum
This morning my head is swirling with thoughts after watching a Broadway rendition of Hadestown. The show is a revival of a Greek mythological story, like so many other great tales. The details of the myth and the story are somewhat irrelevant, but suffice to say that it does what it is supposed to do, which is to ignite thought. I imagine that the Golden Age of Greece certainly raised the bar on thinking and writing great stories and as a storyteller, I like to think that we could be in another Golden Era now if we could get our head out of the gutter for a moment. There certainly is a great deal to ponder and comment on. Are things different than in Ancient Greece? Sure. Times change and despite some credos to the contrary, people change too. They are changed by circumstances and events. I do believe that much of what the Greeks wrote about is applicable to today’s human drama (thus my point about Hadestown), but I also believe that there are new phenomenon that are uniquely modern and different enough in terms of the angst that they create or the outcomes that they provoke, that they must be captured still in story and new mythology. As Descartes said four hundred years ago, “I think, therefore I am”. Cogito, ergo sum.
When I left my apartment this morning I stopped to pet Cecil. Cecil is thirteen years old this week, which makes him about 90 in Cecil years. He has one cataracted eye, one replaced hind leg tendon, a heart murmur and a skin condition which requires him to eat a dog-version of a paleo diet. But he still chases balls and jumps around when Kim comes home. He was sitting looking forlornly into a corner of the room this morning. He had just arisen from about nine hours of peaceful sleep, so he should not have been tired. He looked tired from his posture, but Kim said he was just in his natural state of peacefulness. I cannot help myself, so I go where I should not. I ask what she supposes he is thinking. She is not preparing to leave (even though we will go away for the weekend tomorrow), so he is not stressed in anticipation. She has no particular errands to run, so she will stay home with Cecil all day today. I switch tack and ask her what she supposes is his purpose. She says he is just happy to be with her. When he’s with her he is happy. When she is away he is anxiously awaiting her return. Pretty basic. In the meantime, just stare vacuously into space.
But is that so? Is Cecil really not thinking of anything? Is he non-Cogito? We have all seen cartoons where we see men and women with bubbles over their heads thinking about what dogs are thinking with the bubble over the dog’s head saying, “I wonder what they’re thinking?” Very funny, everything is relative. I prefer the one where they guy is saying, “Speak!” and the dog is thinking, “…softly and carry a big stick?” That makes fun of our presumptions about dog thoughts. But if we follow the existential philosophers we probably won’t go in that direction. In existentialism, mankind, through its individual consciousness creates his own sense of value to his life and thereby makes his existence more significant. Is Cecil busy doing that? I’m thinking not. Though I do enjoy the cartoon of the man walking his dog and explaining to him that recent research suggest that dogs are not so stupid after all, while he picks up the dog’s poop and the dog projects, “Really? Maybe that’s why I don’t pick up your poop.”
Cecil has a charmed life. He worries about nothing except Kim’s presence which his undying affection insures. And he wants for nothing that a dog can want. But that may be the answer to this whole quandary, he has limited wants and is therefore easy to please and thus pretty much always satisfied. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I’m not sure it’s enough for a human being to insure his place in heaven. We cannot simply stare into the distance and expect to find any sort of immortality. We are supposed to do something with our time on this planet. We may not have an innate purpose other than to exist when we are born, but we surely have an obligation to do something meaningful with the time we are given after birth. Friedrich Nietzsche said we could either follow the Master Morality or the Slave Morality. The former is the Hades model of pride and power and the latter is the Orpheus model of grace emphasizing humility, charity, and pity. In Cecil terms, the Slave Morality is best shown in the ASPCA TV ads that force us to stand up to the morality of oppressed animals and that the Master Morality is evil, not just bad, evil. It caused this slave to pay $19/month in homage to the ASPCA, so it worked.
But that is all so reactive, what am I doing that is proactively meaningful? I write therefore I am…trying that is, trying to share my thoughts with the universe. People tell me every now and then that I write too much for them to keep up with. That’s OK, I write to write and to vent my thoughts and the readers’ job is to read what he wants and skip what doesn’t interest. It is my job to keep it fresh and interesting and I test out many ways of doing that. Like-minded politics is certainly one way to draw in one segment. Love and grace draws in another distinct crowd and gets liked more than anything else. I spend great swathes of time thinking about retirement so I imagine my cohorts do likewise and find the topic engaging, but who knows. Do people want to read about the same problems they have or do they want to hear that people have other problems than they share and somehow feel better vicariously letting others suffer through their travails. Hard to say and even harder to prove.
I have decided that there is nothing Cecil can learn from me, but there may be something for me to learn from Cecil. I know how to stare blankly out the window already, so it’s not that. What it may be is to be happy and peaceful with just being rather than trying always to achieve something or fix something. I think that perhaps if I get better at being peaceful I may get better at achieving the right things when the opportunity arises. I may be at that point in my productivity cycle that action has diminishing returns and that the best course of action is to give in to inaction. I can be kind and of grace in action or inaction and the more I see of the world the more I think the Greeks would recommend to me that being the teller of tales and the chronicler of noble stories might be the highest and best purpose to my life at this point, rather than engaging more arduously. I’ll try that out on Cecil and see what he thinks of the idea.